[Coco] DriveWire 4 beta

[Aaron Wolfe]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 7:03 PM, Joel Ewy <jcewy at swbell.net> wrote:
> Aaron Wolfe wrote:
>>
>> Glad you got it working.  If you are using the version on the web
>> page, check for an updated file there later today.  We've made lots of
>> changes in the source since that was put together, need to get that
>> one current.  If you're building from CVS then you've probably got a
>> more recent version so no worries.
>>
>>
>
> I just tried out beta 1.3 and the java server in Ubuntu 8.04.  It worked
> perfectly the first try (which, frankly, surprised me a little.)  I
> installed RXTX using Synaptic package manager, fired up the server with the
> default DriveWireServer.properties file, and booted NitrOS-9.  I was able to
> wget http://sites.google.com/site/drivewire4/beta.
>
> Rocks!
>
> One question:  what's become of the FTP client?  It would be very nice to be
> able to grab goodies straight off of RTSI or maltedmedia.com...
>

That's a good question.  If you've followed the progress of this
project from the beginning, you may remember that at one point in time
we had both an FTP client and an IRC chat client working in OS9.
However, both of these were "fake" in the sense that the CoCo was
acting only as a display, and the actual FTP/IRC protocols were being
handled in the DriveWire server.

At some point, we decided that rather than add extension after
extension to the DW server to support more and more protocols, we
would instead present a generic API that OS9 programs could use to
access lower level TCP connections.  Moving to this model means that
*any* type of client can be written in any OS9 language, opening the
door to lots of neat projects.  On the other hand, it means those
clients do have to be written :)

Writing an OS9 native client to work with the DW TCP/IP API is quite
simple, but some of the protocols used today are pretty complex to
implement.  Wayne Campbell has an IRC client written in Basic09 that's
pretty neat.  The telnet and wget utilities are written in ASM and are
pretty basic so far.

I will eventually start working on additional OS9 clients like FTP,
but right now the DW core is my main focus.  If someone else feels
like taking on these projects I would be happy to lend a hand.  We've
worked hard to make using the TCP API easy in ASM or higher level
languages, so it would be great to see some new things come from that.

-Aaron

> Now I've got to make up a longer cable for upstairs, so my 7 year old --
> Henry -- and I can use my wife's Ubuntu box as a DW server and play loads of
> CoCo games.  The basement (ok, and the attic) are full to overflowing with
> computer junk of all descriptions, but computer equipment in the the main
> floor of the house is severely restricted.  We can hook a CoCo up to the TV
> for short periods of time if we put it away again when we're done.  Getting
> out floppy disks, a disk drive, and controller, in addition to all the ROM
> PAKs and joysticks makes that quite a production.  But with DriveWire, we
> will just need to roll out one cable.
>
> JCE
>
>> The telnet client is pretty weak right now and doesn't do any kind of
>> terminal emulation itself.  For BBSing, I have great luck using the
>> virtual modems with a regular terminal program like supercomm.  Just
>> use /N as your "modem" and regular hayes commands should work.  One
>> strange thing is that echo is off by default due to some other
>> requirements, so ATE1 is a good first step if you want to see what
>> you're typing to the modem.
>> "ATDsome.bbs.host:12345" will get you connected, and the ANSI
>> emulation in supercomm makes the BBSing work very well :)
>>
>> Anyway its nice to know someone else has it running, I think that is
>> about 5 of us now.  You're the second Windows success I know of (after
>> my test machine).
>> -Aaron
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 12:25 AM, Joel Ewy <jcewy at swbell.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Aaron Wolfe wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://sites.google.com/site/drivewire4/beta
>>>>
>>>> This software is not for the casual user who just wants to use
>>>> DriveWire.  For that, please continue to use DriveWire 3, as it is
>>>> well tested and easy to use.  This beta is neither.
>>>>
>>>> If you are interested in dw4, or have a compelling need to use the dw
>>>> drivers from CVS right now, you might find this software useful or
>>>> even fun :)
>>>>
>>>> -Aaron
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Hey, I just briefly tried out the current beta of DW4.  I started it up
>>> on a
>>> Windows XP machine I had been using for DW3.  I was able to wget the
>>> Google
>>> home page and see lots of uninterpreted HTML scroll across the CoCo's
>>> screen.  I tried to telnet to some BBSes, but was getting an error 208,
>>> which I appears to be an illegal system call.  But it's definitely a
>>> promising start.  If I get some time tomorrow I'll see if I can get it
>>> going
>>> under Ubuntu 8.04.  Fun, fun, fun!
>>>
>>> JCE
>>>
>>> --
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>>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>>> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>>>
>>>
>>
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>>
>
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